Exercises to Improve Your Posture

How do you know you need to improve your posture?

1. Most people already know if they don't have great posture, but just in case, here's a test you can do right from where you are sitting: First, sit up straight in your chair... Ok, that was the test! If you needed to sit up straight, you're probably not starting with the best posture.

2. At the end you'll get instructions on how you can get a more scientific computerized posture analysis really easily-- by text!

Important things to know before you do ANY exercises to improve your posture.

Here is a second test roll your neck around in a circle: starting with your chin to your chest, rolling around until your ear is near your shoulder, rolling back so you are looking up at the ceiling and so on in both direction. As you're doing this notice if the movement feels kind of "crunchy," if there are tense or painful areas, or if there is any popping clicking, or grinding. This is an indication that there are underlying issues that probably won't resolve themselves. and it would be good to get it checked out.

What I DON'T recommend is forcing yourself into better posture. This can actually be counterproductive. Good posture arises naturally from a well-tuned spine and nervous system.

There are 3 main things that impact your posture over the span of your lifetime:

Physical stressors (like sitting on your computer or cell phone repetitively or for periods longer than 20 minutes), as well as chemical or emotional stressors that put your body into defense (think of that defense as looking like the more upright version of going into the fetal position).

If you want to know how much the above stressors have impacted your posture, you can do a computerized posture analysis screening through our office right from your phone. Just text a head-to-foot picture of yourself from the front and another one from your right side to our office at (218)464-6673 and we will send you